preferred on
Points of Focus
- House tax package omits proposed mining and staking reward deferral.
- Earlier bipartisan compromise would have limited deferral to five years.
- The committee still advances broader rules covering stablecoins, wash sales, and donations.
House lawmakers have stripped a closely watched mining and staking tax provision from a broader digital-asset package headed for markup Wednesday, leaving miners and validators without the deferral option industry groups had pushed for earlier this summer.
The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, on Sept. 16. The package consolidates several crypto tax proposals previously examined by the committee, but the final text does not include the central provision from Rep. Mike Carey’s Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act that would have let taxpayers defer recognition of newly created token rewards.
JUST IN: U.S. Lower House publishes Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act draft bill to be marked up tomorrow
No tax on tx fees under $10 (new).
No deferral on mined Bitcoin (unch.).
Bitcoin loans nonrecognition, like stocks (new).
Sell-and-rebuy losses: blocked for 30 days (new). pic.twitter.com/w1qE4ySQ5p
— Bitcoin Archive (@BitcoinArchive) September 15, 2026
Under current IRS treatment, mining and staking rewards are generally taxed as income when a taxpayer gains control of them. Carey’s proposal would have preserved ordinary-income treatment but allowed an election to treat newly minted tokens more like self-created property, delaying the tax event.
Mining and staking became the biggest sticking point
The omission follows months of disagreement inside the committee.
At a June hearing, Ways and Means Republicans argued that existing rules can force miners and stakers to owe tax before they have sold the rewards that generated the liability. Committee Chair Jason Smith described mining and staking as one of the areas where digital assets fit poorly into existing tax law.
Democrats did not reject deferral outright.
Rep. Steven Horsford, one of the committee’s most crypto-friendly Democrats, proposed limiting any mining and staking deferral to five years rather than leaving it open-ended. That amendment formed part of an attempted bipartisan compromise around the summer legislation.
But opposition remained.
Mike Kaercher, deputy director of NYU Law’s Tax Law Center, told the committee that deferral gives miners and stakers a taxpayer-favorable subsidy and could create administrative complexity and abuse opportunities. His written testimony urged lawmakers to reject the proposal in its then-current form.
WAYS & MEANS notice for Wednesday’s markup includes 114-page crypto tax package
It includes the FULL HOUSE Act, as we scooped
And R’s dropped major provision on when mining & staking rewards are taxed amid standoff w/ Dems. @ccleffert & I reported over the weekend R’s were… https://t.co/I9AK5A47NG
— Laura Weiss (@LauraEWeiss16) September 15, 2026
By the weekend before the markup, committee Republicans were considering removing the provision, with the issue described as the largest source of tension with Horsford.
The released text confirms that the broader deferral has not survived.
The package still makes major crypto tax changes
Dropping mining and staking deferral does not mean H.R. 10357 is narrow.
The package incorporates provisions aimed at reducing tax friction for everyday crypto activity, including exclusions for certain gains or losses tied to network fees and regulated US dollar stablecoins, alongside simplified accounting elections.
It also brings digital assets more firmly under traditional anti-abuse rules.
Joint Committee on Taxation materials show the legislation extends wash-sale treatment to traded digital assets while carving out assets acquired through mining, staking or similar transaction-validation activity from certain acquisition tests.
Other parts address charitable donations, voluntary disclosure and tax-shelter concerns that lawmakers examined during the June hearing. The committee formally scheduled H.R. 10357 for a 10 a.m. ET markup on Sept. 16.
Crypto tax clarity is moving without solving reward timing
For miners and stakers, the most important question remains unresolved.
The industry has long argued that taxing newly minted tokens immediately can create a liquidity mismatch: a validator can receive a reward, owe income tax based on its value at receipt and later see the token fall sharply before it is sold.
Opponents counter that workers, businesses and investors routinely owe tax when income is received rather than when the underlying asset is eventually liquidated, and that crypto should not receive preferential timing rules.
H.R. 10357 now advances without settling that argument.
The result is a broader crypto tax package that could simplify stablecoin use, accounting and anti-abuse treatment while leaving one of the sector’s most contentious issues, when newly created mining and staking rewards should be taxed, for another legislative fight.
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